Divergent Daughter
by Teisha Youngblood
Summary: Tris is selected to participate in one of the most controversial experiments in her nation's history. Through the experience, she discovers more about herself and the family her mother left behind.
1. Chapter 1

DIVERGENT DAUGHTER

Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent Trilogy in any way. They are property of Veronica Roth

"Today, something has changed in the initiation process," boomed Eric to all of the initiates. I stopped laughing at Christina and Will's antics and stared at him. The glinting metal in his face combined with the steel gray of his eyes makes me flinch for some reason. Their sadistic gleam makes me think that this will not be something we will like.

"One of you lovely, lucky ladies," he drawls, his lips turning up in a cruel smirk "will be able to bypass the rest of the initiation process and become Dauntless two weeks earlier than planned. You will never have to worry about being cold and hungry. You'll never be _factionless."_

I flinch at the last word: to be factionless means always being hungry, cold, and homeless. Security of a faction is what every person wants, but why do only the women get this option. Peter vocalized this same question.

"Because, you stupid Candor, men do not have the ability to bear children." He said, his smirk intensifying. His leer extended to all of the women in the room, from the beautiful mocha Christina to the manly Molly. When his eyes fell on me, a slight shiver went up my spine. "To help explain the process that we are going to be experimenting with, I would like to introduce Ms. Jeanine Matthews of Erudite and Councilman Andrew Prior of Abnegation."

I froze when I heard my father's name and actually flinched when I saw him walk into the room. He looked exactly the same to me; handsome, weary face, plain gray clothes hiding his body completely including his slight paunch, his chestnut hair parted to one side with bolts of silver streaked through it. His warm brown eyes found mine for a moment, and widened in shock. I realized he'd never seen me in anything so revealing; a scoop neck top exposing the tattoo on my collarbone, tight skinny jeans, a studded belt, and my eyes were lined with charcoal colored pencil to make them "striking" as Christina called it. The only thing that looked remotely the same was my straw colored hair tied into a braid. I saw something akin to disappointment flash in his eyes before he turned his attention to Jeanine and Eric.

Jeanine had not changed at all since I had last seen her when I visited Caleb at the erudite compound. Same chunky figure, same blonde bob, and same monotone expression. She looked tense standing beside my father and after everything she'd said about him, I decided there was nothing I'd like more than to scratch her eyes out.

"Ladies, the process that we will be initiating today is going to be somewhat… revolutionary," said Jeanine, her blue eyes lighting up as she scanned us. We were her raw material for her next experiment. "We have decided that to try to stop the mass amount of transfers from one faction to another, we would try a process known as _gene-perfecting_"

I saw my father stiffen and I knew exactly why; I remembered the term from school. It was one of the more horrific things we remembered from our past. My hand shot straight up in the air. Jeanine's eyes narrowed slightly as if she were annoyed with my interruption, but smiled nonetheless.

"Yes… Beatrice is it?" she said as though she had no idea who I was and what I preferred to be called. I heard Molly and Peter snort at the sound of my real name. I ignored them.

"Yes, Beatrice Prior, although here I go by Tris," I informed her with a sweet, bland smile to match her own. "I seem to remember that in the charter of our government, gene-perfection was banned due to the problems we had with it in the past. As, I recall during World War II, Adolf Hitler's vision started out as gene perfection and led to a mass genocide of an entire religious and ethnic group. The same occurred with the genocide of Rwanda with the slaughter of the Tutsi people, and in the Congo…"

"Yes, yes, Ms. Prior, we are very aware of the problems gene perfection has caused in the past," she said shortly as though she were annoyed that I actually paid attention to these types of things in school. "This is why we've had to amend the original terms of agreement we've had for this experiment with Councilman Prior for the past three years." She gestured to him dismissively and he cleared his throat.

"The process that we have decided to initiate here is one of scientific importance. However, we have had to have permission from every one of your faction leaders to proceed with this process." His voice wavered slightly. My stomach dropped as I realized that this was a recent decision he had agreed to, probably in desperation after Caleb and I left to keep other families from knowing his pain. "Dauntless was the only faction in which all of the leaders agreed. Shannon, Max, and Eric seem to think that Dauntless needs to be kept within the faction."

My eyes flashed to Eric and his passive face as though he had been born Dauntless and not Erudite. His eyes locked with mine and he pressed a finger to my lips to tell me to keep quiet. I did not listen.

"Then why even include transfers in this process?" I asked haughtily "We weren't born here. We would taint the results." Jeanine smiled again but this one had more humor to it, as though she was explaining something to an impatient child.

"My dear Beatrice, we are not saying that all Dauntless-born have the perfect genetic structure for the faction," she said. "After all, the Dauntless have transfers as well. We will be taking your test results, combining them with the qualities that are prized in the Dauntless manifesto, and comparing your genetic structures with those of other Dauntless members who share the same qualities and combining the genes to create what should be the perfect Dauntless soldier."

"And how do we get this perfect Dauntless soldier into the world?" I ventured daringly. "With an artificial womb of some sort?"

"Oh no, dear, that is why the female whose genes are selected with automatically become part of the faction." She said sweetly, "You see, once the gene-perfected embryo is created, it will be reintroduced to the biological mother's uterus to be carried to term and birthed. During this time, the biological mother and father will cohabitate into the same environment, and raise the child together; this way both nature and nurture are introduced to the experiment and have the best chance at success."

"So we are going to be forced to become pregnant by someone we don't know and forced to live with them and raise a child together even if we don't like them?" I clarified. For once, Jeanine did not reply. She just looked to Eric how finally spoke after everything was done.

"Yes, Tris, that's the general idea of it. However," he said raising his hand against my instant huff of indignation "Councilman Prior has made it very clear that we are to inform you that you ladies are to make this choice of your own volition without any sort of retaliation if you refuse. If you choose not to participate in this trial, you will continue with the initiation process as planned with no repercussions for your refusal."

The glint in his eyes told another story. I knew then, if any of us refused, we would be factionless for sure.

"Now dears, who of you would like to get started?" asked Jeanine, motioning to the lab table that had been set up while their presentation had been going on. Two Erudites in white lab coats stood silently beside it.

Molly lunged for the table first and most of the rest of the girls followed suit. Only Christina hung back with me, touching my arm gently.

"Tris?" she asked "Are you sure you can do this?"

"No." I said shortly, "but I don't think I have a choice."

"I don't think we do either."

"Then I'm going to need your help," I said putting her hand firmly on my arm. "Do you remember that first day on the train and you asked me to drag you off?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well, I need you to drag me through this"

She nodded and seized my upper arm and directed me to the table and quite literally threw me into the examination chair. Just my luck, Jeanine was smiling at me, clipboard in hand.

"Hello again, Beatrice." She said, as she looked at her clipboard "Just a few basic questions before we begin. What is your full name?"

"Beatrice Natalie Prior"

"Blood type?"

"O positive"

"Birth Faction?"

"Abnegation"

"Parents names?"

"Andrew and Natalie Prior"

"Parents occupations?"

"Councilman and Volunteer coordinator"

"Siblings full names?"

"Caleb Andrew Prior"

"Faction?"

"Erudite"

"Alright then, Beatrice, next I'm going to take a sample of your blood and take a quick cheek swab and you'll be done." She smiled as the needle went into my arm and blood began flowing into her tubes marked 'Prior, B.' in neat handwriting and I opened my mouth to allow her to stick a cotton swab against my cheek and gently scrape. She then placed a sterile white gauze pad against the needle in my arm and pulled it out while keeping pressure on the wound and wrapping it in white medical tape. "Now, Beatrice, if you'll please go see Councilman Prior for your release papers to prove your consent."

I felt as though there were lead in my veins as I walked toward my father. He pointedly refused to look at me until I was right in front of him.

"Hello, Beatrice," he said in his lovely timbre. "I… It is good to see you. I am glad you are well."

"Yes, Dad, I am doing very well," I said stiffly. _I will not cry, not in front of him. I will not be weak._

"Good. If you will please sign this form, Beatrice," he said, his own voice strained as though he too were fighting the urge to cry. I quickly signed the piece of paper without even reading it and hurried out of line, only for a strong arm to grip my arm so tightly that it hurt. I spun around, fully expecting my glare to pin either Eric or Four. Instead, a tall woman in her fifties had ahold of me. She looked familiar somehow with dark green eyes fringed with dark lashes and her hair was a golden brown like wrought gold that had aged in the elements. She was beautiful, beautiful like-

"Mom?" the word escaped my mouth before I could stop it. Of course, this woman wasn't my mother. Her hair was a different color and she was much older. Nevertheless, the look in her eyes was the same as mine.

"Oh my god, _BEATRICE?"_ she gasped and I stared back blankly at her just nodding dumbly.

"But… but, that's impossible. You've been dead for almost eighteen years," she gasped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max, Eric, and Four approach us. Max put his hand on her shoulder, breaking her out of her near hysterical reverie.

"Shannon," he said gently, "She's not _your _Beatrice."

"Max, who else could she be?" the woman now identified as Shannon said, "She looks just like her when she was…"

"Sixteen. She looks like Beatrice did when she was sixteen," he said firmly, "As I recall, Beatrice filled out much more by the time she turned eighteen, the age she _died_, remember?"

"But… she looks just like she did, and her name is the same…" said Shannon truly bewildered. A throat cleared behind us, and we turned away to see my father standing there.

"I can attest to the fact that she is not your daughter, Shannon," he said. At once, Shannon's face turned up in a feral snarl.

"And how would you, a Stiff, know anything about my dead daughter?" she growled at him.

"Because, this Beatrice is my daughter, given birth to by your live daughter," he said quietly trying to calm the feral lioness in front of him "You do remember Natalie, I presume. The daughter who left Dauntless for Abnegation?"

Shannon looked as though she had been hit with a bolt of lightning as she reeled back into Max's arms as though my father had physically hit her. Then, understanding flooded my muddled brain.

The woman I was looking at was my mother's mother; my grandmother. The woman she was confusing me for was my mother's sister; my aunt. My mother wasn't from Abnegation. She was from Dauntless.


	2. Chapter 2

DIVERGENT DAUGHTER

Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent Trilogy in any way. They are property of Veronica Roth

I was sitting in Shannon's office in a plush velvet loveseat, running my hands nervously over the material as I looked at my maternal grandmother making me some herbal tea while she fixed herself a drink of spirits that she called a "shot." She turned and faced me, the lines on her face more pronounced than ever.

It occurred to me that the oldest Dauntless I'd ever seen was Max, but Shannon had to be at least eight to ten years older than him. She had to be good to survive all these years in the trenches, but she didn't look strong, she looked vulnerable, like me, like my mother.

"Beatrice," she began awkwardly, as if my name were something foreign on her tongue. "Has Natalie ever spoken about her life here?"

She looked so desperate that I wanted to say that her daughter remembered her, and the family she left behind, but I couldn't find it in me to lie to her. She didn't look like the type of woman who took lying in stride.

"No, I think she took the motto 'faction before blood' seriously," I said. "But, she obviously cared enough to name me after her sister. Maybe it was too painful for her to talk about. Max mentioned that your Beatrice died."

Shannon ran a hand through her curly golden mane and sighed. It was much more than an expulsion of air; it sounded as if years of burden, worry, and guilt were bursting forth from her mouth leaving her looking five years older and dejected.

"I supposed that could be the truth. Natalie was very close to her sister, particularly after their father died. I worked ten times harder to improve the situation in Dauntless, make our initiates tougher, more ruthless, so they would never have to worry about losing a loved one as I did." She said quietly "I am responsible for the brutal, almost cruel initiation process we have now."

Her admission made the heat rise in my face. Eric's sadistic ways started with this woman, all for revenge against whatever had taken a loved one from her.

"Why? Why would you become sadistic and cold?" I demanded "I know my mother, it would've destroyed her to lose him and instead of giving her love and compassion, you killed her spirit. No wonder she left!"

Shannon just stared at me for a moment, and then she got up and went to her desk. She picked up a picture out of her desk drawer and handed it to me. It was a photo of two girls. One I immediately recognized my mother by her beautiful blue grey eyes, but the rest of her was unrecognizable. She wore tight black clothes and had kohl framed eyes as well as a nose ring, and, despite the look of sadness in her eyes, she looked free; nothing like the restrained woman, I'd known my whole life in Abnegation.

The girl beside her knocked all the breath out of me when I saw her. She was me, I was her. She wore tight leather pants and a cropped black tank top, and her blonde hair looked like it had been meticulously straightened to get rid of the girlish waves that often plagued my hair. Her make-up was elaborate and I knew that she was trying to make herself look more sophisticated, but what struck me most about her was the rage in her eyes. She was fierce where my mother looked beaten.

"Natalie and Beatrice's father was murdered in a factionless riot," Said Shannon with a tight voice. "He was the leader of the security force there, and a leader of Dauntless. He shouldn't have been fighting, he should've been commanding them from the outpost but he always prided himself in fighting among his people and it cost him his life."

"And Beatrice blamed the factionless for his death." I finished for her knowing she couldn't even bear to say it. Shannon nodded, tears streaming down her face at the memory.

"Beatrice didn't just blame the factionless, she hated them." She said "She wanted nothing more than to become a member of Dauntless so she could make them pay. Natalie pitied them. She said they only revolted because they were hungry, that they wanted the same opportunities for their children as ours had. It was the only thing I could ever remember them disagreeing on. They had just finished fighting in this picture; it was taken on Beatrice's choosing day."

I stared into the hard, steely eyes of my aunt and cringed slightly. She didn't join Dauntless because she wanted to become brave; she joined so she could get revenge. She knew nothing about ordinary acts of bravery like my grandfather did. From what Shannon had told me, he embodied what the original Dauntless manifesto required from its members, total self-sacrifice in spite of fear, doing what is right no matter how afraid you might be.

"How did she do in initiation?" I asked. Shannon sighed, took the picture back, and laid it in the drawer where it had been.

"She was in the top slot of the first stage," she said her gaze still far off in her memories. "She beat every opponent she was put against, male or female, with an aggressiveness I've never seen. She damaged one girls arm so badly that she dropped out of the initiation process."

"Then she didn't do so well in the second stage. She was overwhelmed by her fears, and it took her at best fifteen minutes to get out of the simulation. She came in at the tenth overall spot, just one peg above being factionless, but then she worked and worked and worked until she could get through her fear landscape with a good time. She was able to work through them in an astonishing seven minutes. It bumped her up to the overall spot of third."

Therefore, my aunt clearly wasn't Divergent like me if the simulations were difficult for her to deal with, but she still found a way to deal with her fear landscape. The visions of me going through Lauren's and losing my mind made my cheeks burn red with shame. How did she do it?

"When she passed initiation, she chose to work in the control room as a security guard; if a fight broke out amongst the dauntless, she broke it up. She knew every soldier was needed, and they shouldn't fight each other. She even worked at a bouncer at the bar on her nights off." Shannon's voice was proud now "She lived and breathed Dauntless. This faction was her world."

"Until her death," I reminded her. "What happened to her?"

"She was searching for Natalie, and a friend of hers who'd gone missing," said Shannon, anger creeping into her voice. "The two going off on their own wouldn't have been a problem except that her friend was a man named Daniel who worked in our control room. We thought he was going to sell our faction's secrets to the Factionless and take Natalie as an unwitting hostage."

"So she went to find him to save her sister?" I asked thinking that perhaps she had found hope and healing in her faction until Shannon shook her head sadly.

"Honestly, I think saving Natalie was just a coincidence at first. She wanted to stop him from getting to the factionless; she didn't want them to have an advantage in our war against them." Shannon put her head in her hands as she continued "Beatrice caught them in Abnegation, crossing into the factionless slums. She confronted Daniel, informed him that he was under arrest, and charged with treason. She and Natalie started fighting and Daniel managed to get ahold of Natalie and hold a gun to her head. He told her that he was going to escape with the secrets and that Natalie was coming with him. She managed to convince him to let her sister go, that a little girl who had no standing in our faction would be worth less than one of their security guards, one of their promising new additions, and so she and Natalie were traded right as we arrived. No one was willing to shoot him while he had a gun to Beatrice's head, but in the only act of self-sacrifice I ever saw her commit, she managed to slightly wrestle the gun from his grip and shoot herself in the stomach to give our soldiers a clear shot at him. In the time it took us to shoot him and run to secure the scene, Beatrice was dead. Natalie was screaming, Abnegation members poured out of their homes and took her away from the scene and we started cleaning up."

"After that I knew my whole world was gone. I watched my older daughter burn on a funeral pyre just like her father's a year before, and my younger daughter was so unhinged by the violence she witnessed that I told her to transfer to any other faction, as long as she didn't stay in Dauntless. I knew the only way to save her was to give her up. She left for Abnegation and I was left to put Dauntless back together. I think I've done relatively well all things considered."

My mind reeled at the information she had given me. My mother had witnessed her sister's death; most likely felt responsible for it. No wonder she became part of Abnegation, she wanted to atone for her sins.

"Shannon-"I started but was interrupted by a grunt at the door. Eric stood there with his arms crossed, nonchalantly leaning against the doorframe. I wanted to punch him for interrupting us, for intruding on my grandmother's pain. My grandmother; the words sounded strange to me. I'd never had a grandmother. My father's mother died before I was born. In Dauntless however, Shannon was the only family I had.

"Sorry to interrupt," He said with a smirk that said he was anything but, "The Erudites have the results of the tests. They ran everything through a giant computer and 'ding!' out came the results in about an hour. They're going to reveal them in the cafeteria."

Shannon rose and in an instant, the sad, grieving mother I had seen for the past couple of hours were gone, and in her place was a Dauntless soldier.

"Very well, come along, Beatrice," she said putting a firm grip on my shoulder to guide me out the door. We walked in silence, but I wished someone would speak. Never had silence seemed so loud to me.

I found Christina in the crowd and after taking one look at my face, she wrapped her arms around me and I slumped against her. I just wanted today to be over. I had learned too much, and it had made me tired.

I rested my head on Christina's shoulder and let her support me as Max droned on about the importance of this experiment to our faction. I didn't hear one word of it. I closed my eyes and went off into a dreamlike state until Christina violently shook me awake. I looked to where her finger was pointing. On the screen that was apparently announcing who was to be paired with whom; my face was on one side of it. I stared dumbly at it and then followed her finger to the other person on the screen. I found myself chanting to myself as I raised my eyes to my new mate.

_Please let it be Four, please let it be Four, please let it be Four…_

It wasn't. The person, who was staring back at me on the screen and on the stage with the other Dauntless leaders, was Eric.


	3. Chapter 3

DIVERGENT DAUGHTER

Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent Trilogy in any way. They are property of Veronica Roth

Eric. I was doomed to spend the rest of my life with Eric. Max gestured me to come forth but I shook my head and wrenched my arm out of Christina's grip. I turned on my heel and sprinted away from the crowd. Many Dauntless attempted to grab me but I twisted out of their grip. I wouldn't be Eric's plaything, not now, not ever.

I could see the light of above ground ahead of me. I knew I would be factionless once I left the underground but I didn't care, anything was better than the fate they wished to resign me to. My foot had just found purchase on the bottom rung of the ladder when I felt muscular arms wrap around my waist and haul me up.

"No!" I shrieked, clawing at the arms that confined me, "I won't go back. I won't be his."

"That's enough," whispered a deadly voice in my ear and I froze. Tears slid down my cheeks and I turned in the arms to sob into the muscular chest behind me. Four's hands slid from my waist to my shoulders, one tangling gently in my hair, the other cupping the nape of my neck.

"We'll figure it out, but you can't destroy yourself in the process." His voice whispered silkily against my ear. I looked up into his blue-black eyes and felt my sadness seeping from my body. I leaned up to his face for a kiss. Our lips were a hairsbreadth away when a silky voice we both knew and dreaded interrupted us.

"I think it would be best if you took Tris to the operating room now, Four," I looked over Four's shoulder to see Eric standing there, his arms crossed over his chest, a smirk playing on his lips. "We wouldn't want anyone to accuse you of being a traitor to your faction by contaminating the test results of the experiment, now would we?"

I looked into Four's eyes, saw the defeat there, and let loose a wail of despair. He couldn't help me, no one could. I tried to flee again but I felt Eric help Four restrain me as they started to drag me away from the opening. My screams seemed to be having a profound effect on Four who was visibly cringing. Eric, however, was emotionless the whole time. They dragged me to the infirmary where Erudites in white lab coats and blue scrubs were waiting. A few Amity people in red scrubs were there as well. One took my hand and guided me away from Eric and Four.

She took me to the back washroom and handed me a gray gown to put on. She helped me out of my clothes and pinned my blonde hair on top of my head. When I slipped the gown over my head, she took a warm cloth and began wiping my face off with it. She smiled and whistled as she worked, her happiness lulling me into a comfortable state.

"Are you ready, dear?" she asked me. I nodded and stepped back into the operating room. Four was gone, but Eric was still there, his black uletarian clothes a sharp contrast to everyone in the blindingly bright colors in the room. His face was passive as they laid me down on the bed and positioned my feet into stirrups with a sheet over my legs to give me modesty. The Amity woman was still holding my hand. Without even looking behind her, she grabbed Eric's wrist and guided his hand into mine. He looked at her with a cocked eyebrow and a gaze that would make most men quake in their boots, but she just smiled.

"She's going to go under in a few minutes. This procedure is something new and frightening for her. Give her some comfort. She is, after all, going through the procedure to give you a child." Her cheerful voice had the slightest bit of condemnation. Eric gripped my hand more firmly and I clung to it as if I was gripping at a straw in the sea that could save me.

"Shh," he whispered, "I'm here. I know I'm not who you want, but I'm here."

They started bringing out the medical instruments and began to put needles into my body and inject me with certain anesthetics to make my vision blurry at the edges. I felt my grip on Eric tighten and the heart monitor they hooked me up to showed the spike in my pulse.

"Tell me who you want," whispered Eric. I ignored the monotone in his voice, almost certain that someone was giving him the words to say to calm me.

"I want my mother. I just want my mom," I whimpered, not caring how coward like I sounded. I wanted to be a child again so that I could have my mother chase away my fears. An Erudite placed a breathing mask over my face and said:

"I want you to count backwards with me from ten. 10…9…8…7…"

"6…5…4…" as my vision started to go blurry, Eric's hand was replaced with a softer, smaller one. The fresh scent of soap and laundry detergent was the last thing I registered before I went out. It gave me strength.

I awoke with a fuzzy feeling in my head. I was in a hospital bed and I had an IV still in me. I looked around and saw Eric sitting in a chair by the bed seemingly asleep. It amazed me that he could look so deadly while asleep. Anger surged through me at the sight of him and I kicked him to wake him up.

He started with a snort and glared at me, his eyes flashing pure hot rage in my direction but the rest of his face stayed passive.

"What?" he asked angrily. I momentarily faltered and began to stutter.

"Is… did they… is it over?" I asked meekly and Eric's eyes cooled significantly, as he chuckled and patted me on the head.

"Do you mean, 'am I pregnant?'?" He asked as he stroked my face in a gesture of mock affection. "No, little Tris, you're not pregnant, _yet._"

"What?" I yelled disbelieving. I felt all the blood seep out of my face and my hands were shaking. "Then what was the point of what I just went through?"

Eric's laugh rumbled deep in his chest as his eyes danced maniacally in his face matching the glint of his piercings. He leaned over and quickly kissed me causing me to jerk away from him and my heart to hit the floor.

"Calm down," he said still chuckling. "The procedure was just to give you a physical, and take some blood and genetic samples. I had to give mine too, but mine was much less formal with a magazine and a date with my hand. You're going to get pregnant by what they call in vitro fertilization, Tris, so they can control the genes that our child gets."

Our child. The words hit me like a ton of bricks. I started sobbing. Tears and snot ran down my face, but Eric just stood stoically beside me making no move to comfort me. He just released a sigh.

"They injected you with a high dosage round of hormones to prep your eggs for harvesting," he said. "I see they're already starting to have an effect on you. Great."

I didn't even acknowledge him. I curled up in a ball and ignored him as he continued to speak, explaining the procedure.

"You've got about eight more weeks before they'll ensiminate your eggs to _try _to get you pregnant. Odds are, the eggs won't take in your womb and we'll have to do the procedure over again, and then there's a good chance that you'll miscarry the first and second time you are impregnated and the procedure will start all over again." I couldn't help but notice how he took particular glee in the literal hell I was going to go through to bring his baby into the world. His baby. Again, the words made me want to vomit.

"Does it not even bother you that I could get pregnant with your baby just to lose it?" I asked through clenched teeth. He just shrugged.

"You're going to have a healthy baby at the end of it, no matter what the price. We'll keep going through this until you do. Every fetus that doesn't make it is just a failed experiment that wasn't strong enough to survive in this world."

His loveless analysis of his own potential children made me choke on a sob. He would never love his child and he certainly held no love for me. My life was going to be nothing but misery.

As if he were reading from some manual that they had given him, he stiffly reached out and stroked my hair.

"You just rest now," he said without any emotion though the words were supposed to be comforting. "after you have a nap, they'll discharge you and we can go home."

"Home?" my head snapped up at the word "Where is home for me now?"

His smile was pure malice as he answered

"With me," he said, "you live with me now."

I groaned and retreated down into my covers and wished they could just bury me here. I'd sleep alright and wish to God I'd never wake up.


	4. Chapter 4

DIVERGENT DAUGHTER

Disclaimer: I do not own the Divergent Trilogy in any way. They are property of Veronica Roth

As I was being discharged, a kind Amity man was giving me instructions on the pills the Euridites were giving me to mature my eggs. Throughout it all, however, I kept my eyes trained on Eric, afraid to let him leave my sight. He was twirling a knife around in his hand with boredom but I had no doubt he was listening intently to every word that was being said.

"… And as for you, Eric, make sure she rests. This procedure won't work at all if she is emotionally or physically overwrought," He finished his explanation with his kind eyes on Eric. He nodded lazily and yawned stretching his arms above his head.

"Is that it?" he said. The Amity nodded and handed me a black case full of medical supplies that I knew I'd never be able to use on myself. I gave the kind Amity a blank stare as he wished me good luck. Eric all but pulled me out of the room and started walking me toward the part of the compound where all the Dauntless members lived. I imagined that as a leader, Eric had one of the highest apartment flats that had been carved into the rock. I wasn't disappointed. We took an elevator to the precarious top of the cliff. I saw that Eric had a glass-enclosed balcony that overlooked the chasm, so he could peer down on all the Dauntless almost as if he were their god. It made me sick to think about. He shoved me inside once we reached the door.

The floor was polished gray stone with metal support beams throughout the structure. He had a black leather sofa and black and glass furniture. The entire place oddly reminded me of the Erudite compound; so much for faction before blood.

Eric went to the sofa and perched on the very edge of it while watching me carefully as if he were afraid I'd bolt again. I just stood there as if glued to the floor my eyes absorbing everything in my surroundings for torture weapons.

"What?" Eric finally snapped looking annoyed. I snapped my attention back to him.

"How does this work?" I asked him.

"How does what work?" He asked leaning back on the couch, lacing his fingers behind his head. The fact that he looked so calm with all of this made me furious.

"This. How do we deal with this?" I asked him again, "How do we deal with living in the same space as one another, trying to have a baby together, having a family, when we don't even like each other?"

"I don't not like you, Tris," said Eric nonchalantly as if we were talking about the weather. "I also don't like you either."

"That's what I'm talking about! How do we make a family work if we don't even want to be together?" I asked angrily, crossing my arms over my chest. Eric let out a short laugh and stood up. He strode over to me and I continued to back up until my back hit the wall. He put his hands on both sides of my head and brought his face close to mine.

"In Erudite, matches were not a matter of love but of logic. If you worked well together and it made sense to have children together, then you got married and started a family," he explained. "My mother and father didn't love each other, didn't even love me, but we had a good home, food on the table, and I became a leader of a faction. So, I'd say that the Erudite knew what they were doing, wouldn't you?"

"No, I wouldn't. In Abnegation, you loved people. We knew love was selfless, like what it is to raise a child. How can you say that love isn't an integral part of a family?"

"And look where you are now, some trophy wife to a faction leader with no real skills of your own. It seems selfless love is dangerous if you ask me," he said his mouth beside my ear, his hot breath tickling it.

"I am not your wife," I snarled at him pushing him away. It felt like I'd tried to hit a brick wall. Eric laughed as he put his arms around my waist and drew me close to his body.

"Actually my little troublemaker, you are," he said in his smooth snakelike voice. I just stared blankly at him.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him flatly. He let go of me, strode over to his desk, and picked up a piece of paper lying there.

"Looks like someone didn't read what she signed," he said with a malicious grin as he handed me the paper. It was the consent form I'd signed; I finally began reading it. I skimmed over the scientific part that the Erudite had inserted and looked at the last paragraph, which outlined a Dauntless marriage contract between the two chosen participants. I threw the paper back at Eric.

"So what? I don't care what I signed, I'm not marrying you," I said stubbornly turning away from Eric and walking to the door. His arms wrapped around my waist and I felt myself slammed to the floor. He straddled my waist with his legs and pinned my hands beside my head. His grin made me think all of this was a sick game to him. I spit up at him.

Eric's face turned red as he wiped the spit off with the collar of his shirt. His fingers twisted into my hair and he snapped my head back painfully. I screamed and thrashed around but Eric picked me up by my hair and proceeded to drag me into another room, the pressure on my scalp forcing me to walk with him.

He pulled me into a plainly furbished room with a metal framed bed made with a silky black comforter and sheets. He threw me down on it, and pinned me while reaching behind him for something on the nightstand. It was a pair of handcuffs. I thrashed even harder against him but he simply cuffed my hands to the headboard.

He then proceeded to calmly remove my shoes and socks, and began unbuttoning my pants. I felt tears stream down my face as I frantically begged Eric to stop. I couldn't believe I was going to lose my virginity this way. I closed my eyes and tried to separate myself from my body. A sharp pain brought me back to reality.

Eric was removing a syringe with a large needle from my thigh, and putting a bandage over it. He then pulled my pants back up and re-buttoned them. The look on his face was evil.

"What? Did you think I was going to rape you or something, Stiff?"

"Go to Hell, Eric," I screamed at him. "I'm still not marrying you, no matter what you do to me."

Eric acted as if I hadn't even said anything as he took off his shirt revealing rock hard abs and other cords of muscle lining his frame. He shoved off his boots, and crawled into the bed beside me. He punched the pillow a few times before he laid his head on it and jerked the comforter up over both our bodies.

"Eric, I'm serious, let me go!" I desperately tried to pull my hands out of the handcuffs, but it appeared as though I'd have to break my thumbs to do so. It was better than just lying here beside a crazed lunatic. However, as soon as I almost had the thumbs broken, Eric was there making the cuffs tighter on my wrists so I couldn't move them a half an inch.

"Come on, Stiff, give me a break. This isn't exactly how I wanted to spend my honeymoon either, but I don't think you want to be bent over the bed, so I suggest you shut up and go to sleep before I decide I don't care."

"This isn't a honeymoon, Eric," I snapped at him, kicking my legs out at him. "I am not your wife; not now, not ever."

"Yes you are, Tris, whether you like it or not," he snapped at me, straddling me again, "The paper you signed acts as a marriage license. We don't have weddings in Dauntless. All we do is sign a marriage license when we want to get married and that's all there is to it. You are already my wife."

I felt like ice water had just seeped into my veins. I was already Eric's wife. I must have stopped thrashing around since Eric stopped pinning me down.

"All better?" he asked with an evil smirk on his face. That condescending tone did it. I snapped and slapped him straight across the face.

Since he wasn't expecting the impact, his head snapped to the side. I felt a moment of hollow victory before Eric turned his head back to me. The look on his face was murderous. I attempted to run from him but I didn't even get to the door before I felt arms as strong as steel bands wrap around my waist and throw me back onto the bed. Eric just stood over me staring murderously.

"The only reason that you aren't a bloody mess right now is that you're needed in top physical condition for the experiment to work. I just injected you with your hormone shot so you're on track to proceed. However," He said as he turned for the door "if you ever do that again, I swear to your pathetic God that I will make your life a living Hell."

"As if you haven't already…" He spun around and was in my face so quickly it made me catch my breath a little in fear.

"You think this is as bad as it can get?" He said with a maniacal smile, his eyes wide and shining. "Think again, Stiff, I can make your life much, _much _worse. Just think about that for a while. I'm going to go to the bar and get drunk for a while. You get some sleep, and when I come back I expect you to be a tad more _compliant, _alright?"

With that, he sealed his lips to mine in a quick kiss and laughed as I grimaced. He turned again and walked out the door. Just as he left, he called out the most bone-chilling sentence I'd ever heard.

"Hey when I get back, you can tell me how it feels to be Mrs. Eric Thornton."


End file.
